1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer program product, system, and method for modifying memory space allocation for inactive tasks.
2. Description of the Related Art
An operating system instantiates tasks to perform application and operating system operations. Each task is allocated an amount of system memory, which remains allocated to the task even when the task is not running, such as not executing instructions. The memory allocated to the task may store executable code for the task and working memory. Many tasks may be called very infrequently or may not run at all. These infrequently executed tasks may retain their allocated memory space. Because available memory is a limited computing resource, infrequently used tasks that maintain memory space allocations may slow down or limit the operability of applications that the user wants to frequently run.
There is a need in the art for improving the management of allocating memory space to tasks running in a computer system.